Khomich, AkzoNobel’s Russian sales manager for protective coatings.
Pipeline coatings suppliers to the Russian market are mostly foreign multinationals with experience of the global oil
and gas industry.
“There are around 4-6 major pipeline
manufacturers in Russia but they use coatings made by Western companies either in
Russia or imported,” said Khomich.
Also, a large proportion of pipes are exported into Russia by Western European
pipe makers who develop their own coatings formulations or are supplied by coatings producers. In addition there are
international specialist coaters operating in
Russia who apply their own formulated
coatings to pipes, often at the location of
the pipeline. Hempel of Denmark, 3M
Corp. and PPG Industries are among multinational pipeline coatings producers active
in Russia while coatings raw material suppliers include LyondellBasell Industries,
Dow Chemical and Bayer MaterialScience.
Among the coaters Bredero Shaw has
been expanding in Russia through a JV
with a Russian offshore pipeline contractor
with the opening of a concrete coating
pipeline facility at Arkhangelsk in the
northwest of the country.
Jotun of Norway, which is already a
leader in the pipeline coatings market in the
Middle East with a 30% share, has just
started constructing a factory at Fe-dorovsky Industrial Park in Leningrad Region for liquid and powder coatings. The
plant, which is scheduled to be opened in
early 2014 will provide a platform for
Jotun to make inroads into the Russian
pipeline sector.
“We expect sales to grow for powder
coatings applications (in Russia), particularly in the area of pipe coatings,”
said Stein Petter Lunde, divisional vice-president, Jotun Paints (Europe).
Jotun has adopted a strategy of being
a single-stop source of powder and liquid coatings for all types of pipeline requirements, including new projects and
maintenance.
AkzoNobel is aiming to add to its
portfolio of pipeline coatings a comprehensive range of liquid paints for the
Russian market, in which it is already a
provider of powder coatings.
“We are developing or optimizing for
Russian approval a number of products like
solvent-free polyurethanes which give the
right thickness for pipeline coatings,” said
Matt Fletcher, AkzoNobel’s European tank
linings manager.
Russian companies are being encouraged by Gazprom and Transneft to develop
new pipeline coating technologies.
Gazprom has a collaboration agreement
with Russian Corp. of Nanotechnologies
(Rusano) for the development of metallized
protective coatings for pipelines. The Russian pipelines industry needs coatings which
have proved themselves in extreme weather
conditions to be resistant to corrosion and
temperatures as low as -60˚ C and to provide thermal insulation, flow enhancement
and fire protection.
The oil and gas sector like much of the
industry elsewhere in the world is, however,
conservative about technological change.
So it continues to rely mainly on standard
coatings systems like fusion-bonded epoxy
(FBE), 3 layer polyethylene and polypropy-
lene and multilayer foam coats. The prior-
ity is improvements in application and
quality control, particularly through the
supply chain from the pipeline factory,
transportation, storage and installation.
Many pipeline failures have been blamed
on mechanical damage of coatings before
or during installation.
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